12 OSSEOUS CACHEXIA. 



hidebound, appetite variable, sometimes impaired, and nearly always 

 perverted (or depraved) so that the patient will lick the manger con- 

 tinually or pick up and chew all sorts of objects: bones, leather, 

 clothing, wood or iron, stones, etc. The amount of food consumed 

 may, however, be up to the normal. The most marked feature is the 

 difficulty and stiffness of locomotion. . . . Temperature and yield 

 of milk may remain normal. 



" Later, appetite and milk secretion fail, temperature rises a degree 

 or two, the animal refuses to rise, remaining down twelve to twenty-four 

 hours at a time, and . . . when rising • • • ^ remaining on the 

 knees for a time, moaning and indisposed to exert itself further. At 

 this stage many cases begin to improve and may get well in five or six 

 weeks. Some will remain down for several weeks and finally get up 





^-:^^'^- ' '^ 



,4 



Fig. 5. — Hear! of a pig Buflering from osseous cachexia. 



and recover. With constant decubitus, however, the animal falls off 

 greatly, becoming emaciated and weak, the appetite may fail altogether, 

 and the patient is worn out by the persistent fever, nervous exhaustion 

 and poisoning from the numerous bed-sores . . . which are common 

 over the bony prominences. It is in these last conditions, above all, 

 that fractures and distortions of the pelvic bones, and less frequently of 

 the bones of the legs occur." 



" The disease may advance for two or three months, and in case of 

 pelvic fractures and distortions, there may be permanent lameness, and 

 dangerous obstruction to parturition, even though the bones should 

 acquire their normal hardness through the deposition of lime salts." 



In horses, the different phases of the disease develop precisely as in 

 bovines. The apparent differences between affected horses and cattle 

 result in reaUty from differences in their capacity for continuing work. 

 In the first phase, horses are incapable of work, their movements being 



